Aarekti Premer Galpo (Just Another Love Story)

Rituparno Ghosh completely reinvents himself from director to actor and delivers a gripping performance in this very lyrical film by Kaushik Ganguly. Just Another Love Story (original Bengali title: Aarekti Premer Galpo) is about a filmmaker Abhiroop Sen (played by Ghosh) who makes a documentary about Chapal Bhaduri, the legendary jatra (Bengali folk theatre) actor who spent his entire career playing female roles on stage, primarily as Goddess Shitala.

The Truth about Me: A Hijra Life Story

What is it about the form of the life story—the autobiography—that makes it so seductive and so deeply discomfiting at the same time? I think it’s how the boundaries between private and public, someone else’s life and your own, blur in your reading. The relationship you forge is rich and colorful and insightful, but it’s also dark and violent and difficult to come to terms with.

Voces Zine (Summer 2010, Issue 3)

Unapologetic. Raw. Honest. The third issue of Voces Zine is a collection of poetry by artists from different communities—indigenous, people of color, trans, and queer—sharing their experiences as survivors of domestic and sexual violence. Originally inspired by a small community of Latino immigrants, this issue represents a first-time inclusion of contributors from outside of its original roots. The eclectic air of the compilation reflects this shift.

The Danish Girl

The Danish Girl is like a multilayered Flemish painting or tapestry. On the surface, it’s the story of the marriage of two painters, Clara and Einar. However, Einar Wegener was the first male to undergo successful gender affirming surgery.

Religion at the Corner of Bliss and Nirvana: Politics, Identity and Faith in New Immigrant Communities

Religion at the Corner of Bliss and Nirvana, a collection of essays on the religious activities and identity formation of immigrants to the United States, is the fruit of a four-year study conducted by researchers from the Religion and Immigration Project (TRIP) at the University of San Francisco.

Who's Your Daddy?

Postmodern indeed. As a single Black lesbian mother, I assumed that a resource like this wouldn’t yet exist. On searching, I discovered a literary road map to queer parenting and family that is current, diverse and mini-encyclopedic in its breadth. Reading this work made me feel as though I had added to my family of choice.

You’ve Changed: Sex Reassignment and Personal Identity

Each essay in Laurie J. Shrage’s collection, You've Changed, takes on the challenge of analyzing the philosophical, cultural, and psychological dimensions of the—for lack of a better or more acute concept—umbrella category of “trans” identity. This same challenge, which underlines the collection’s creation, is the same challenge that often times handicaps its clarity and ultimate success.

Out in the Country: Youth, Media, and Queer Visibility in Rural America

The town I grew up in—Athens, Georgia (pop. 100,266)—is generally known for two things: indie music (a la REM, Elephant 6, and Kindercore) and the University of Georgia, both of which play a major role in maintaining the town's liberal leanings. However, Athens doesn't lean too far. It's still a place where college football dominates from Labor Day to Christmas, and if you're not in church on Sunday morning, you are assumed to be riddled with sin. Coming up in an environment rife with contradiction, I learned a lot about peaceful co-existence through plausible deniability.

Miles from Nowhere

Present-day New York City is incomparable to its former seedy and dismal self. It was a city of survival up through the eighties, and as Nami Mun shows in her novel, Miles from Nowhere, people were either crushed by the city or driven to great lengths to make it through the day. The story follows the teenage Joon, the daughter of a Korean family who immigrated to New York.

The Revolution Starts at Home: Confronting Intimate Violence Within Activist Communities

The Revolution Starts At Home is not your usual zine. At 111 pages, it qualifies as a book, and I’m excited to say the editors are looking for a publisher. Pending publication*, it will soon be available on the INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence website. Don’t be turned off by the bulk; this is an important zine that needs to be read by all activists of any sort. Contributors include Alexis Pauline Gumbs of UBUNTU, collective members of Communities Against Rape and Abuse (CARA), Vanessa Huang, Gina de Vries, and a collection of women from the Mango Tribe.

Live Through This

In the late nineties, playwright, singer-songwriter, and spoken word artist Sabrina Chapadjiev was an impassioned student playwright in college when she experienced an intensely creative period that put her on the brink of self-destruction. She had recently learned that a young, fierce playwright she had long admired, Sarah Kane, had committed suicide, and she was worried.

She's Not the Man I Married: My Life with a Transgender Husband

She’s Not the Man I Married is a smart, in-depth look at being a woman whose husband is transgendered.

Like Son

I was surprised to realize, after I turned the final page and perused the back jacket, that Like Son was not Felicia Luna Lemus’s first novel. It reads like a debut, in good ways and in bad.

Shabnam Mousi

Yogesh Bhardwaj’s 2005 Bollywood film Shabnam Mousi presents some interesting issues regarding gender. It focuses on a group of eunuchs who raise a eunuch child within their clan. This child grows up to be Shabnam, the star and namesake of the film. Shabnam and other eunuchs struggle with the fact that they are not complete men or women, and that they will never be able to marry or have children. They question why god made them “incomplete,” and why other people in society treat them so unkindly. There are various altercations in the film between the eunuchs and other members of society.